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		<title>A strange growth on the cat &lt;https://y.st./en/weblog/2016/08-August/16.xhtml&gt;</title>
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			<h1>A strange growth on the cat</h1>
			<p>Day 00528: Tuesday, 2016 August 16</p>
		</header>
<p>
	The power washer continues to act up today.
	I&apos;m not sure what the deal with it is.
</p>
<p>
	My mother and I took a trip to the recycling center to try to find a Wi-Fi dongle for their $10 <abbr title="United States Dollars">USD</abbr> laptop that we picked up at a yard sale the other day.
	Vanessa asked me to look for a Windows/OS X laptop there to use only for syncing and reading their new pedometer, but we both knew that even the Linux machines there are more expensive than that, so I didn&apos;t find one.
	We did find a Wi-Fi dongle, but we weren&apos;t able to test it until we got home due to the short life span of the laptop&apos;s battery.
	It turned out not to function though.
	It&apos;s really odd too, as the paper insert that came with the Wi-Fi dongle specifically mentions functioning with Windows XP, which is running on that machine.
	Oh well, I suppose we&apos;ll just need to return the dongle then.
	While we were at the recycling center, I should have looked for replacement power cords for <a href="/en/domains/newdawn.local.xhtml"><code>//newdawn.local.</code></a>, but I didn&apos;t think of that until after we&apos;d left.
</p>
<p>
	I managed to sneak a look at the receipt from my mother&apos;s recent pedometer purchases.
	They cost $60 <abbr title="United States Dollars">USD</abbr> each! That&apos;s a pretty expensive gift to buy someone that&apos;s you don&apos;t even know will want the thing! That doesn&apos;t take into account either the fact that I&apos;ve actively expressed <strong>*disinterest*</strong> in it.
	Speaking of the pedometers, Vanessa started researching inexpensive mobile devices to try to find one to use with their new pedometer.
	I had told them that I know where to get them for $20 <abbr title="United States Dollars">USD</abbr> each, but maybe they wanted to find one even cheaper than that.
	In any case, our father wouldn&apos;t stop pestering Vanessa to figure out what they were doing online, and when Vanessa finally broke down and told them, they decided to dig through their stuff to locate one of their old mobile devices.
	Reportedly, Vanessa asked them several times to stop, but they wouldn&apos;t stop until they&apos;d located the device and pressured Vanessa into taking it.
	Of course, our mother is offended that our father would be involved with the pedometer that our mother purchased.
	With both parents being control freaks about this, Vanessa&apos;s not seeing any way to win besides to simply not play.
	They&apos;re again considering returning the pedometer to avoid further strife.
</p>
<p>
	It seems that my auto-pay credit from Cricket kicked in yesterday, so I&apos;m now free to turn off auto-pay.
	Now that that&apos;s turned off, the countdown to the end of my mobile service through them can commence.
	The coming month has been payed for.
	After that month, if all goes as it did last time, Cricket will shut off my voice features (which I don&apos;t use) and my outgoing <abbr title="Short Message Service">SMS</abbr> feature (which I also don&apos;t use).
	Effectively, I&apos;ll be getting a gratis month of data usage, along with incoming <abbr title="Short Message Service">SMS</abbr>.
	I don&apos;t need <abbr title="Short Message Service">SMS</abbr> service, but hey, gratis data will be nice.
	After both months have passed, my service through them will come to an end and I will be free to switch to T-Mobile.
</p>
<p>
	The <abbr title="The Onion Router">Tor</abbr> Project teeshirt team that contacted me yesterday wrote back with unexpected news.
	It sounds like regardless of the fact that my node is down, they want to send me a teeshirt once I have a stable address! At first, I thought that they were waiting until I had my <abbr title="The Onion Router">Tor</abbr> node back up (though it didn&apos;t sound like I need to get my two-month streak back).
	However, after thinking on it a while, I realized that they are probably waiting because I said that I&apos;m in the middle of a move! They probably think that I don&apos;t have a postal address that I can keep for long enough for the shirt to arrive.
	It&apos;s true that I&apos;m in the middle of a move and don&apos;t have even basic Internet access, but I do have a stable enough postal address to accept packages, I think.
	Then again, the school year is quickly approaching.
	Whether my mother has found a job or not, we need to get moved to somewhere quickly.
	Otherwise, Vanessa will need to change schools mid-year.
	In any case, I don&apos;t mind waiting for the shirt.
	I might even wait to let them know that I&apos;ve moved until I have my two-month streak back.
</p>
<p>
	My university program advisor also contacted me today to introduce themself.
	I should keep their email address on hand in case anything comes up.
</p>
<p>
	Vanessa was playing with Frances and spotted a strange growth on Frances&apos; toe.
	That can&apos;t be good.
	Our mother thinks that it&apos;s nothing to be worried about and seems to think that it might be just toe skin that&apos;s gotten a bit inflamed or something.
	Another possibility that they brought up, and one that seems more likely,is that it&apos;s a skin tag.
	If that&apos;s the case, it could be bad or it could be nothing.
	There&apos;s not much that we can do though, as we can&apos;t afford a veterinary bill right now.
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